Onarigami (おなり神, also written as をなり神) is the ancient belief of the Ryūkyūan people that spiritual power is the domain of women.
The roles of women in Okinawan society and the ritual traditions of the Ryūkyūan religion are related to this belief.
Women with exceptionally high spiritual power are called kaminchu (神人) and many have specific jobs in society.
His role was passive compared to the Buddhist monks, high priestess and other leading female religious officials (Smits, 101).
Near the end of the sixteenth century, the Shimazu clan of Satsuma invaded the Ryūkyūan Kingdom with the approval of the Japanese rulers in Edo.
As many of Satsuma's elite viewed the Ryūkyūans as culturally inferior, a number of contemporary politicians attempted to reform the kingdom in order to be more acceptable to both the Japanese rulers and to China.
During this time, it is thought that the brother-sister relationship became more important than ties to wives and mothers largely as a result of the influence of state formation and the introduction of a patrilineal form of kinship.
Links between the court and the outlying islands that had been affected by state priestesses were transferred into the male sphere.
Critical voices of the government in this time included the female poet Onna Nabe, whose writings indicated a strong personal connection to onarigami.
Gregory Smits writes that this exemplified the “widening gap between an increasingly Confucianized central government and a peasantry that continued steadfast in its traditional religious beliefs and practices - with local officials caught in the middle,” (116).
While some of the earliest accounts of the Ryukyuan people by Westerners suggested that it was a matriarchal society, there has not been sufficient evidence to support this.
Göttner-Abendroth cites onarigami as evidence that the “ancient Japanese matriarchal culture” came from the south (147).
The women in the Okinawan society are thought to have the power to bless or curse a male's kin.
The roles of these women in the household are to maintain the family structure as well as continuing on the ritual, such as praying on ancestral shrine.
Still, these married priestesses choose to abstain from sexual relationships with their husbands during the time of important events and rituals.
Yuta, female shamans or mediums, are kaminchu with the ability to see, hear, and be possessed by kami or spirits.
Some American scholars have interpreted them as being malevolent magical practitioners or compared them to fortune tellers, and Japanese administrators even outlawed their operations at one point.
The Tanetori Festival on Taketomi Island, for example, "centers on the sowing of seeds and prayers for their growth," rituals which are performed by onarigami.
Towards the end of the last century, there has been a revival of sorts of the idea of onarigami and its relation to the identity of women in Okinawa.
The power of Unai has been used for political gains today, including electing a female representative into the city council of Naha in 1987.